“Because to indulge it, would bring them into trouble,” he replied. “Neither your enemies or mine would run the risk of murdering us in open day; but suppose they could kill us by simply wishing it? I should drop down dead before your eyes—and you would fall a corpse in Main Street before you reached your home!”{1}
{Footnote 1: His words.}
“A gloomy view enough, but I dare not deny it.”
“It would be useless, colonel. That is the way men are made. For myself, I distrust all of them—or nearly all.”
He uttered the words with intense bitterness, and for a moment remained silent.
“This is gloomy talk,” he said, “and will not amuse you. Let us change the topic. When I am not discussing public affairs—the doings of this wretched administration, and the old man of the sea astride upon the country’s back—I ought to try and amuse myself.”
“You find the Examiner a heavy weight upon you?”
“It is a mill-stone around my neck."{1}
{Footnote 1: His words.}
“Why not throw it off, if you find it onerous?”